Erie County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz is calling for a re-examination of county agreements to share sales tax receipts with municipalities and schools, saying the county is overly dependent on sales tax revenues and cannot afford to share any more.

Poloncarz on Tuesday released a report examining the local sales and compensating use tax collected in Erie County, including the county's sharing of sales tax revenues with other local governmental entities.

"Given the fiscal pressures on the county, I cannot stress strongly enough my opposition to any additional sales tax sharing or dedication of sales tax revenues to specific purposes," said Poloncarz. "Simply put, the county cannot afford to share more revenue or divert funds for a specific purpose without such action having a negative impact elsewhere."

The report notes that in 2007, Erie County is legally required to share 46 percent of $624 million, the total local share sales tax collected, with 74 municipalities and school districts as well as the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority and the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority.

"As a result, the county is effectively subsidizing local governments and school districts in Erie County. The county is consistently criticized for having one of the highest sales tax rates in the state but it is clearly the case that the county could easily reduce its rate if it did not share nearly 46 percent of its sales tax revenues with others."

Erie County Medical Center officials said they welcomed an audit by the county comptroller's office and expect it to help them continue to improve the hospital. As an academic medical center and institution of higher learning, ECMC is a public benefit corporation and by state law the comptroller or any other agency can audit the hospital.

The comptroller also acknowledged an audit of Erie County Medical Center will begin soon, something that medical center officials said they invite.

"With the turnaround in our financial standing over the last two years, our operating surplus and the fact that our hospital is near patient capacity daily, we welcome the comptroller's auditors," said ECMC President Michael Young. "They will find what our patients, doctors, nurses, staff, and board already know and contributed tremendously to: Our hospital has performed an unprecedented operating and financial turnaround in recent years.

The hospital, which realized a $47 million increase in revenues from 2005 to 2006, will receive less than $9 million in county money in 2007 and zero for operations in 2008 and 2009, ECMC officials said.

ECMC Chief Financial Officer Sue McCarthy has assembled a team to respond to the auditors' needs covering the last two years. This is the first audit by Erie County in recent memory, and the first since the hospital became a public benefit corporation in 2004.

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